INCLUSION DAILY
EXPRESSInternational Disability Rights News Service

http://www.InclusionDaily.comYour
quick, once-a-day look at disability rights, self-determination and the
movement toward full community inclusion around the world.

Friday, April 23, 2004Year V, Edition 920

Today's front page features 8 news and information items,
each preceded by a number (#) symbol.Click on the"Below the Fold"
link at the bottom of this page for 34 more news items.

QUOTES OF THE DAY:"We just want it to be settled very
fast."--Mary Jo Butler, legal director for Idaho's Comprehensive
Advocacy Inc., on a suit it filed against the University of Idaho alleging
violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (Third story)

"The world seems so much smaller now."--Pamela Dee, who is
deaf and uses text messaging on a cell phone to communicate with her father
(Fifth story)

LITTLE ROCK,
ARKANSAS--Conway Human Developmental Center is violating the civil rights of
its residents, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded after a 17-month
investigation.

In a 50-page letter sent Thursday to Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee,
U.S. Assistant Attorney General R. Alexander Acosta outlined the findings made
by investigators looking into conditions at the facility which houses 550
residents with developmental disabilities ages 11 to 66.

The investigators found "certain conditions at Conway that violate the
federal constitutional and statutory rights of residents," Acosta's letter
read. "In particular, we find that residents of Conway suffer significant harm
or risk of harm from shortcomings in the facilities' health care, habilitative
treatment services, restraint practices, and protection from harm
policies."

"The investigation found evidence of egregiously deficient, and at times
life-threatening medical care, as well as deficient physical and nutritional
management and therapy services," the Justice Department said.

Among the allegations in the findings letter is the claim that one
resident experienced more than eight separate episodes, during the three months
prior to her death, of significant bleeding at the site of her colostomy bag.
Conway staff failed to address her bleeding, even though it was sometimes in
amounts sufficient enough to spill blood onto her legs and soak her clothing.

The Department also found evidence that a majority of Conway residents
suffer from seizure disorders, yet the manner of prescribing anti-convulsant
medications at Conway may in some instances have actually worsened their
seizure disorders.

Particularly disturbing, wrote Acosta, was the institution's failure to
develop an accountable system for investigating resident deaths, particularly
in light of the facilitys other identified deficiencies.

The investigation also found that the facility failed to provide
adequate special education services to school-aged residents in violation of
the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Actual instruction
time was extremely limited -- in some cases lasting as little as six minutes a
day -- and the content of class instruction was not educational.

Finally, the Department alleged that some Conway residents were not
being treated in the most integrated setting appropriate to their
individualized needs, as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. A
number of residents have lived at Conway for most of their lives without the
state ever making any meaningful attempt to determine whether they could
function in a more appropriate setting outside the facility.

Residents who had been deemed ready for community placement, in some
cases decades ago, have never been given the chance to move back into the
community.

"In the unexpected event that we are unable to reach a resolution
regarding our concerns, the Attorney General is empowered to initiate a
lawsuit," Acosta concluded in his letter, giving the state 49 days to correct
the problems. "We would prefer, however, to resolve this matter by working
cooperatively with you."

TAMPA, FLORIDA--Michael Schiavo's suit against
Governor Jeb Bush over the constitutionality of "Terri's Law" will remain in
Pinellas County Court, an appeals court ruled Friday.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal disagreed with the governor's
attorneys, who argued that Mr. Schiavo failed to file the suit properly when he
chose Tampa instead of Tallahassee. The appeals court said Bush's legal team
should have brought that up at an emergency hearing that was held the night
Bush ordered Terri Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted.

Mr. Schiavo filed the suit on October 22, 2003, when "Terri's Law" was
passed, giving the governor the authority to have his wife's feeding tube
reinserted. Bush had championed the bill through the Legislature in just five
days after Terri's feeding tube was withdrawn under an earlier court order.

Mr. Schiavo believes the governor violated Terri's right to privacy,
along with the Florida Constitution's separation of powers.

Terri, 40, currently lives in a Clearwater nursing home. Court appointed
doctors, along with her husband, believe that she has been in a "persistent
vegetative state" -- that she cannot interact with her surroundings, cannot
feel pain, and cannot recover -- since she collapsed and her brain was without
oxygen for several minutes in 1990. She regulates her own heart rate and
breathing, but is given food and water through a feeding tube installed through
the wall of her stomach.

The courts have consistently supported Michael Schiavo's claims that his
wife would not have wanted to live in her presented condition. He successfully
petitioned to have her feeding tube removed so she would die of starvation and
dehydration on October 16.

Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, believe that she is alert and
responsive and that she could improve with therapies which Mr. Schiavo has
refused to allow. The Schindlers want him removed as Terri's guardian and have
pushed for an investigation into their claims that he has abused, neglected and
financially exploited her. They also suspect that he may have caused Terri's
initial collapse.

The Schindlers and disability rights advocates have defended Terri's
right to live, noting that allowing her to die by starvation would reinforce
the message that the lives of people with certain disabilities are not worth
living. Bush pushed for "Terri's Law" after receiving tens of thousands of
messages from disability rights advocates and right to life supporters.

Bush's attorneys said Friday that they were not surprised at the
appellate court's ruling.

MOSCOW, IDAHO--Tired of empty promises from University of Idaho
officials, an advocacy group is suing the school to force it to comply with the
Americans with Disabilities Act.

Comprehensive Advocacy Inc. (Co-Ad), the state's Protection and Advocacy
Services office, filed the federal suit because the university has failed to
mark its building entrances as accessible or inaccessible for people with
disabilities.

Mary Jo Butler, legal director of Co-Ad, told the Associated Press that
a trained advocate informed the agency of the university's alleged violations
two years ago.

"We have talked to the UI and written them letters," she said. "We got a
letter from the university in 2003 that $15,000 had been allocated to post the
signs at building entrances and that it was expected to be done very soon."

Butler said that recent inspections showed that none of the signs had
been posted on the campus.

"We hope this won't have to go to court," Butler said. "We just want it
to be settled very fast."

Butler explained that Co-Ad set a goal this year to push all state and
local government agencies in Idaho to comply with ADA accessibility
guidelines for public buildings.

"Most of the time we just wrote a letter and the people fixed the
problems. They'd have a consultant come out and tell them what needed to be
done, and that was it," she said. "That's why we were so disappointed when the
University of Idaho would not do anything. They admitted there was a problem
that needed to be fixed."

A UI spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the university had not
received notification of the lawsuit.

BEIT LAHIYA,
GAZA STRIP--An Israeli incursion into this Gaza Strip town Thursday has left a
number of building destroyed, including a center for people with
disabilities.

The Jordan Times ran a story by the Agence France-Presse news service,
which reported that several acres of agricultural land were leveled, along with
a civilian house and a "centre for handicapped people". The center was not
occupied at the time, according to Palestinian sources.

Ten other buildings were damaged or destroyed, including a school and a
kindergarten.

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that the center was dynamited
because "it had been repeatedly used by terrorists to fire at our forces".

One Palestinian teenager, who apparently was not affiliated with the
center, was fatally wounded in the neck when he and a group of other youths
clashed with troops, the Times reported.

EXETER, ENGLAND--The
following four paragraphs are excerpts from a brief item by BBC News Online
disability affairs reporter Geoff Adams-Spink:

An Essex man has taught himself to use text-messaging at the age of 81
so that he can communicate with his daughter who is deaf and has no speech.

Arthur Dee from Romford decided to buy two mobile handsets which were on
offer at his local Tesco supermarket so that his daughter, Pamela, could
contact him to let him know when she wants to be picked up.

Mr. Dee said that 57 year-old Pamela still lives with him but likes to
travel around independently by bus.

The Center for Housing and New Community Economics (CHANCE) was
established in March of 2001. CHANCE's mission is to improve and increase
access to integrated, affordable, and accessible housing coordinated with, but
separate from, personal assistance and supportive services. CHANCE's purpose
will be to offer alternatives to approaches that segregate, congregate, and
control people with disabilities. The IOD will work in partnership with ADAPT
in all aspects of the Center. ADAPT is a national organization that focuses on
promoting services in the community for people with disabilities.

Over a decade ago, the national organization known from its beginning as
the "Association for Retarded Citizens" recognized that the word "retarded" was
hurtful to many of the people it represented. The national organization changed
its name to "The Arc of the United States". Most -- but by no means all -- of
the individual chapters across the country have followed suit.

Two weekends ago, the board of The Arc of the United States took the
step of removing the words "retardation" and "retarded" from its mission
statement.

Terry Boisot, who was present at the meeting, wrote "It was a bold move,
and a move that is not without consequences."

"People with disabilities will celebrate because they will recognize The
Arc's decision was out of a belief that all people are inherently valuable and
it will help them achieve the dignity they have longed for. Parents of young
children will gain a newfound respect for an organization whose commitment to
inclusion for their children they once doubted."